The unloading ramp or Neue Rampe at Auschwitz II-Birkenau only opened in May 1944. The previous arrival point, however, was the Judenrampe located between Auschwitz I and Auschwitz II-Birkenau. From the Judenrampe a connection was made to the Neue Rampe. Today this connecting trail is overgrown.

This Auschwitz album records the arrival and selection of victims. It contains photographs of Hungarian transports arriving at the platform in Auschwitz II-Birkenau. The album was probably compiled by the Polish photographer Wilhelm Brasse, who worked as a prisoner for SS photographer Bernhard Walter at the Auschwitz Erkennungsdienst. The photographs record the people’s arrival. SS doctors select those fit enough for slave labour and those who will be sent straight to the gas chambers in the rearmost section of Birkenau. These are horrific images of the policy of racial extermination. Grandparents, parents and children sit among the birch trees, waiting for their imminent death. The ones deemed fit to work are taken to the sauna. There they are shaved, tattooed and issued with camp uniforms, before being placed in the quarantine camp. The Auschwitz album was found in 1945 by Lilly Jacob, during the liberation of the Dora-Mittelbau concentration camp. It was in a drawer in an infirmary block. As she leafed through it, she recognized relatives and acquaintances and, to her surprise, a photographic report of the arrival of her convoy.